Hard Fork · Friday, August 14, 2026
Casey Newton and Kevin Roose discuss Google's experimental app, Dream Beans, which analyzes users' emails and photos to generate personalized "inspirational" illustrations of alternative lives. The hosts find the app amusing but question its purpose and longevity.
“It reads all of your emails, and then it tries to send you a daily set of inspirations based on the sort of person you could be if you didn't have a job.”
“It makes these illustrations of you and and your friends, like people in your life. It makes like cartoon slop of like, here's what you and your family and your friends could be doing if you like were a healthy well-rounded person who didn't spend all day looking at a screen.”
“I will say I'm looking very fetching in my blazer over a graphic tea, which is not a look that I have worn since 2006.”
“And then finally, this was my maybe what maybe one of my favorites. This is me and my fiance. We're apparently in an old timey print shop making wedding invitations.”
“I guarantee it will be shut down by the end of the year.”
“Because it serves no purpose whatsoever.”
“I kind of like it.”
“So it's like it's like life style voyeurism but for yourself.”
“What kind of person could I be in an alternate universe?”
“It says, prepping your night vision for the Perseid meteor shower and there we are in a field together looking at the stars.”
“It is a picture of Kevin and I underneath the stars. Just. Like Kevin and I are friends and we do hang out. We have never actually gone to see a meteor shower before and I'm not sure that we would.”
“Wait, I kind of love this. Let's go look at the start. Will you go look at the meteor shower with me? You know, let's get out of here. Let's go see the dang stars. Let's turn our dream beans into reality beans.”